Page 782 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007
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housing assistance to ACT residents, which would open the gates to a flood of applications from across the country. Similarly, we would not be able to stop millionaires accessing housing assistance or target assistance to those who need it most. Parts of this bill are aimed at ensuring that the government can address these issues.
As I indicated earlier, the government believes that identifying a mechanism for reviewing the commissioner’s decisions is an essential component of any housing assistance program. In the old act, reviews by the AAT were something which may be included in the program; it was not required. We have strengthened the review provision, while not restricting the avenues through which the review may be conducted. It is not necessarily the case that the very formal procedures of the AAT are always the best and only mechanism by which such reviews should occur.
In relation to the council’s comment on the time frames for providing further information to the commissioner, it is clear that the seven-day period included in the bill is a minimum time period. The bill also requires a reasonable time for information to be provided, which allows the commissioner to take into account the circumstances of the applicant in determining the required time frame. It is not the intention of this provision to refuse assistance to those eligible people in immediate need. I repeat: it is not the intention of this provision to refuse assistance to those eligible people in immediate need—something which has been missed by Dr Foskey.
With regard to the new provision which allows the commissioner to seek information from existing recipients of housing assistance, it is clear that we would need to be in a position to better understand the needs of our tenants in order to effectively manage the social housing system. We do not currently have information on a range of issues, the most important of which is income levels of our non-rebated tenants.
As the government considers possible changes to the housing system, it needs to have the best possible information available, and this provision provides us with the basis to collect those details. For example, without tenant income information, we are not in a position to assess the impact of proposed enhancements to the housing system or new policy proposals or model the effect of inducements or incentives which we may seek to provide, such as shared equity.
The proposed sanctions for not providing the requested information to the commissioner are reviewable by the AAT, consistent with the seriousness and formality of those sanctions. Members may recall that the capacity to collect this type of information was discussed in the review of Housing ACT market renters tabled in this place on 26 August 2004. Any suggestion that this conversation has not been enjoyed some time ago is ludicrous.
With regard to the council’s comment about the scope of the provisions which protect personal information, it is clear from the bill that the exemption is provided in the context of the Freedom of Information Act 1989. The information to be exempted is treated consistent with that act.
The council’s comment about office accommodation for community organisations in Housing ACT properties appears highly self-serving. The government has repeatedly
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